


That Summertime Boredom.

by OrissC



Series: The Big Four and the... [2]
Category: Guardians of Childhood & Related Fandoms, Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragon, Rise of the Guardians (2012), guardians of the brave tangled dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 14:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11853060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrissC/pseuds/OrissC
Summary: Jack didn't want to be bored, but he was.Just because he lived in one of the most magical places on earth doesn't mean he can't mope about it.i.e What was Jack doing before he'd met Hiccup?





	That Summertime Boredom.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short companion piece to 'Disastrous Beginnings'.  
> It'll make sense if you read it alone. but be missing a few small nuances if you just read this alone.

Jack had spent the summer doing very little, if anything. Nothing seemed to interrupt his constant leisureliness. The house elves took care of most things around the workshop. So there where very little chores, except as punishment. The yeti’s where away in the mountain’s for the summer. Santoff Claussen was mostly quite. With it’s citizens going about their daily routines. Jack, on the other hand, was stuck in his room, since he gotten off punishment for an earlier stunt he had pulled involving a pair of antlers, a bed sheet, and some roller skates. Jack was a lanky boy full of mischief. His hair was brown, short, and unkempt, as if he’d gotten out of bed and simply hadn’t bothered to do more with it, then pat it down a little. His eyes where an average heavy brown, like his mother's. What people notice most though, was his smile. He almost always had a trickster’s grin on his face, displaying his snow white teeth. Today was an exception though. With nothing to do in his room but, ugh, read, Jack was less happy-go-lucky smiles and more pouts and frowns.

“Jack, have you seen William?”

“Which one?”

“The almost youngest one.”

“Then no, William, I haven’t seen William.” Jack answered plainly, frustrated from doing nothing.

“Ok, thanks anyway.” William said, running off down the hall to one of the other rooms on their floor. Jack rolled his eyes.

“Honestly, who names all three of their own children the same thing?” 

Jack went back to doing what he had been. Which was nothing actually. Jack thought to himself, how he hate the summer, and he really did. Not for the lack of cold, it was always cool in Santoff Claussen. It was just that their was nothing left to do. All Jack could do was wait for school or fool around the workshop. Had he had something to do that day, perhaps he wouldn’t have scared the others with that ghost prank that night. 

“Jackson!” Jack hated people calling him by his first name. He wasn’t sure why, but something about the ‘-son’ part just kind of upset him.

“Yes Katherine!” Jack screamed back, he wasn’t moving unless it was necessary. With Katherine it could be anything. 

“Get down here right now young man?” Jack sighed, rolled his eyes, got out of his bed and made his way downstairs to see what his foster mother wants. Katherine was a kind woman, brave and loving. She was also strict, and observant and knew just about everything that went on in the workshop. Katherine was a slender witch, not thin, but slender, her faces was like her personality stern and hard, but full of love and beauty. Jack loved her for what she and North had done for him and his sister. She was just so much more serious then North, most of the time. When Jack got down stairs he found her baking

“Yes ma’am.” he replied dryly once he’d gotten there.

“Jack what are you doing this summer?”

“I don’t know?” Jack asked, becoming rather aggravated. 

“Jack.” She looked at him sternly

“What! I  _ don’t _ know. North’s been gone for like month, and school doesn’t start for another month and a half.”

“Jack, you can’t spend the entire summer doing nothing.”

“I know that, it’s just there’s not much to do. Petter and Sascha, went with North, Fog’s in London still for that internship, and the Williams are kind of annoying.”

“Jack!”

“Sorry, they just are. Why are they all named William.”

“It’s a family name Jack.”

“I know Goose, but you name  _ one  _ kid in the family after yourself. Not all of them.”

“That’s not for us to decide, Jack.”

“That doesn't make it normal.”

“Then go outside with Flee. It only get this nice outside during the summer.”

“We went outside yesterday, and the day before that, and without the yetis it takes forever to get out of Santoff Claussen.” It was becoming more and more obvious that this was going to be a very long summer, and not in a good way. “Maybe I could take Petrov out.”

“Oh no you won’t.” the random appearance of a voice startled him. 

“Sascha!” 

“Hey, Jackie.” Jack was excited to see Sascha, she was his favorite step-sister. Step-sibling in general actually. She wasn’t as serious as everybody else. Sascha was one of North and Katherine’s older charges. She was smart and funny and pretty. But that’s not important. She just a lot of fun to hang around with. And Jack liked that about her. 

“Wait, if you’re here, where are North and Petter?”

“They’re still in Norway meeting with the Durmstrang Institute heads for this years Triwizard Tournament.” 

“And is there a reason you came back so quickly?” Katherine asked

“What can I say Goose. I missed the taste of your sweet home cooking.”

“Always the flatterer Sascha, but it will get you nowhere.”

“You wound me Goose, See Jackie, right there,” She pointed to her neck, “That’s where she wounded me.”

Jack couldn’t help but laugh, Sascha was so amazing. Jack heard the uncanny crackle of fire. “That should be North and Petter.” Katherine said. Jack ran over to the edge of the banister and saw them shaking the soot off their robes in the fireplace. 

“Katherine ve are back!” North called out

“Yes dear, I’m aware.” she replied.

“Hey Goose.” Petter said

“Hello sweetheart.” she replied, kissing the young man on the cheek.

“Wha… Goose I didn’t get a kiss.” Sascha asked, playing offended. Goose went over and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you.” Sascha said satisfied. She and Petter left to get back to their rooms, leaving Jack with North and Katherine. She quickly returned the situation back to Jack, the place it had been, before Sascha’s interruption.

“North, please talk to Jack, about his summer activities.”

“Vat for.”

“He’s been in his room all day, doing absolutely nothing.” She explained.

“But why must I do this, where you not talking to de boy moments ago?” North asked puzzled.

“Yes, I was.” She began to explain. “But I just realised the time, and it’s almost 3 o’clock in London, and I was going to take these cookies to London for Fog.”

“Katherine, he is nearly 18 years old. give the boy some space.”

“Oh, fooey Nikolai. He,” she rubbed on Jack's head, tousling his brown hairs “and all the children of this workshop are my precious children.”

Jack rolled his eye’s at Goose over the top mothering, but actually he was genuinely touched by the sentiment. He might have had his squabbles with the other’s every now and then, even North. but he really did love them. “Now don’t worry I should be back within the hour. Don’t mess anything up while I’m gone please and thank you.” Katherine made her way to the chimney and grab some Floo powder and tossed it in. “British Ministry of Magic Atrium. And North talk to the boy.” with that she was gone zooming through the Floo network to London. North took heed of Goose’s tone, and spoke to Jack. 

“So you have been doing notting, dis summer Jack?” He asked, the words saturated in his Russian accent.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Jack mumbled. “But now that you’re back, you can take me out to the tundras right.”

“Absolutely not.” North said, it didn’t sound the way ‘absolutely not’ usually sounds. He’d said it calmly.

“But why?” Jack shout surprised that North of all people wouldn’t let him do this. 

“There’s too much to be done in the coming weeks” North replied. “Get Sascha or Petter to take you.”

“So I can go, you just can’t take me.” Jack reasoned

“Correct. I’m sorry Jack, there are just many things Headmistress LaLuna wants me doing in preparation for dis years Triwizard Tournament.”

“I understand.” Jack really did understand. He didn’t like it, but he understood. North had business. That couldn’t be helped.

“But I will be able to take you to get your things for school.” he said smiling, as if it was the greatest thing imaginable. To Jack, It kind of was. Jack could finally get his wand. A real wand. sure he wouldn’t be able to do magic. But as soon as he got to Hogwarts, he would. 

“Alright, so when’re we leaving?” 

“In two months, to get to Diagon Alley in time to purchase your supplies.” 

“Two months!” Jack exclaimed, upset as to the timeline he had before he could finally get to Hogwarts. 

“But of course Jack, we have to be in Europe, in time to get to the train station.”

“Train Station! North, are you saying I’m gonna have to ride that bloody train too?”

“Obviously, Jack. How else would you arrive at the school in time.” North spoke with his average matter-of-factness. Jack had hoped he would just ride with North in his sledge. He wasn’t like the other kids, he already had an in with some of the professors anyway. Why couldn’t he just ride to the school with North. Though before their conversation could go any further, they were interrupted by the unmistakable sound of flames. Someone had arrived, quite prominently, by Floo. 

“North! North! Oh there you are.” Tooth sprang from the chimney with a pep in her step. Toothiana was no foreigner to North’s workshop. and commonly visited through the Floo Network. “Jack, North, I have such exciting news. I’ve just finished with all my Special Visits, and I’m quite sure we might have a very interesting class this year.” 

“Tooth you’ve said that every year since I met you.” Jack said happily, as he greeted her, embracing her, happy to see his good friend and future teacher again. 

“Well Jack of course I do, Every year we have an interesting class.” she said as she smiled. She smiled in a way that let people know she was honest and happy. Jack loved this about her, she was a constant supporter of him, despite his constant antics. 

“Vell, Alexia, it is good to see you again.” North said with his hefty Russian accent. “But tell me, to what do I owe dis pleasure?” 

“Oh, yes of course, forgive me. There was one child on one of my special visits, who will need some help getting to the school, and I simply don’t have any way of get him to Diagon Alley, or the time in the next few weeks,” she spoke with her ever common quickness. “and I was hoping, you could get him, sometime before the school term starts? Maybe within the next two weeks, if it’s not a problem?”

“Well if dat is all, then it’s easier done den said.” North boasted with a clammer of his usual charm. 

“Fantastic! Thank you so much, Nikolai!” 

“Der is nossing to thank me for, Alexia. Anyting for a friend,” North assured her. “Now who is this student?”

“Oh, right.” Tooth said rather irritated by her forgetfulness. “His name is Hiccup Haddock. he lives on the island, 26 Berk Road, Swindon.”

“Hiccup!” Jack laughed, thinking that such a ridiculous name actually being given to someone. “What kind of name is that?”

“Oh come now Jack,” Tooth said reassuring him.“It’s not his real name, and we all have a weird name to somebody... like Snowy.” Jacks ribbing ended quickly upon the reminder of his own, rather ridiculous, nickname.

“Alright Tooth, you didn’t have to mention that.” he pouted, and Tooth couldn’t help but smile.  “Alrighty then, what’s this Hiccup-guy like anyway?”

“Well he’s a viking, so you guess what he looks like.” 

Jack was instantly regretful of his teasing. A Viking! He was no doubt a giant, bulky and huge. Jack on the other hand was rather small and stringy. Not abnormally so, not much different then most of the children his age. Compared to a viking though, his arms were probably no different than small twigs. 

“And with that, I’ll be making my way back to London now.” Tooth walked back to the fire place. She took out her wand and pointed it at the barren fireplace.  _ Incendio  _ she spoke and the fires of the fireplace where a lit _.  _ She procured a handful of Floo powder and threw it to the flame. There they bursted into an emerald blaze.

“British Ministry of Magic, in London.”  

“The Ministry of Magic?” Jack asked, baffled as to why she’d won’t to go there.

“Oh,yes I have a meeting in the Ministry, discussing -” She looked to North. His eyes were wide, and warning. “School functions with the Department of Magical Games and Sports.”

“Oh. Gotcha.” Jack reassured her, well aware that she wasn’t being entirely honest. “Oh, and Goose is over there too, visiting Fog.”

“Oh! I’ll make sure to look for her.” She smiled, and with that Tooth stepped into the emerald flames and was on her way.

“Vell, Jack, good news, our schedule has just been upped, ve leave in two veeks.”

“Yes!” This was it, Jack was gonna get his wand sooner than he thought. Of course he couldn’t use it, but still he’d have it. 

“Now if you need me, i’ll be in my office, still much work to do.”

“Alright, see you at dinner.” North left and Jack was once again alone, with nothing to do. He realized that with North in his office and Goose visiting Fog in London, he could go back to his room. He also realized that he’d have nothing to do in there either. It dawned on him, though, that he had had an idea of what to do, just five minutes ago. He’d go out to the tundras! Thought he could never walk there himself. The yetis were gone. ‘Petrov, maybe?’ the thought crossed his mind of using the Petrov to get him there, but Sascha had said earlier that he shouldn’t. Or couldn’t. The Bear! he thought. No, that would just be dumb. Jack found himself quickly running out of ideas and hope.

At that moment it came to Jack. ‘Obvious.’ he thought. House-elf.

It took a half-hour, three bribes, an I.O.U. or two, but Jack convinced one of the House-Elves to apparate him to the outer walls of Santoff Claussen. The journey usually takes an hour or so on foot. 

“Alright Dingle this is my stop, pick me up back here in an hour, okay.” Jack asked the nervous elf.

“Yes Master Jack, but are you sure of this, Dingle, know Master North will be very mad if you are caught.” 

“Calm yourself, Dingle, I’ll be fine. This isn’t my first time.” Jack was highly confident in himself and his sneaking skills.

“Yes, Master Jack, which is why I am sure, the punishment will be severe.” 

“It’s gonna be fine, Ding. Just get back inside, don’t tell anybody where I am, especially North and Goose, and just pick me up in an hour. Got it.”

“Understood.” Confirming his understanding, Dingle was gone, and Jack was on his way. He climbed down the mountain range that made the outer wall of Santoff Claussen’s defenses. Santoff Classen was a wonderful city of magic, made for wizards and witches, and all manner, for all who had dreams. Jack was a dreamer, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to be there. He moved onward through the harsh snow and wind. He loved it though, the ice and cold. He always felt better in the cold, strong, free. In spite of all the things that had happened that night. He still prefered the winter.

Jack waded through the snow banks, finally reaching the holes in the mountain, that he’d been looking for. He finally made it to his cave, the place Jack could go when everything was become too much, or when he just felt like being alone, but not wasting time in his room. Jack’s cave was his special place. It was also his own private skating rink and it was a wondrous one. An ice cave sculpted by nature, but looked like it was molded by human hands or maybe even magic. It was a huge ice cavern, with frozen walls made of the most blue ice, anyone could hope to see. Formed into a rigid dome with a hole in it upper side, a peephole to the sky up above. The rink was a frozen lake, perfectly smooth and clear, like some giant ice mirror. Jack spent a great deal of time in this cave. I gave him a sense of absolute peace. If anything was wrong he could just come here and skate away his frustrations. This time he was going to skate out his boredom.   

“Come on cave. Do your thing.” 

Jack laced up his skates, and stepped onto the ice. Jack was an extremely nimble boy. He glided on the ice surface, gracefully sliding and moving around in no particular formation or direction. He just did what he did whenever he came to the cave. Clear his head and avoid thoughts of his own death.

  
  


The week went by quicker than Jack had originally expected. He was much too happy about that. Before he had even realised it, it was almost time for them to go and pick up that viking kid. Jack wasn’t sure exactly how he’d feel about some giant getting in between his and North’s shopping time. This was his chance to show North what he was responsible. Jack let these thoughts run through his head, as he lay on the banister in the workshop, his second bed.

“Jack!” Jack was startled from the sudden noise, and fell from off the top of banister. The fall was short, but his butt still hurt. Jack hadn’t needed to see who it was, to know exactly who it had been.

“Bloody Hell, Bunny. What’re you doin’.” Jack yelled back, rather irritated. “Tryin to kill me?”

“Trying to get yah focused, brat.” Aster,  replied. “So you ready, for your first year at Hogwarts.”

“Of course I am.” Jack confirmed, smiling a smug grin, to match Aster’s “And I’m gonna be exceptionally great if I might say so.”

“How humble of you, Snowball.”

“Don’t call me that!” Jack reply, rather frustrated. Aster was well aware that Jack hated all of his ice related nicknames. “You, bloody kangaroo.” Just as Aster hated that specific animal related nickname. So as usually they ended arguing, which led to, once again, a more physical confrontation.

“Alright de two of you!” North boomed in. The stopped instantly. North was as fun and delightful as the next jolly fat man, but he was also someone to be taken seriously. “Alright vhat was it dis time?”

“Bunny, was being a total prat.”

“Wha- he called me ‘Kangaroo’.”

“Well that’s what you look like.”

“I do not! I Don’t turn into a  _ kangaroo _ , I turn into a rabbit.” And Aster was rather proud of it, most wizards, his age or greater, weren’t Animagus.

“How exactly is that better?” Then next thing Jack knows, Aster jumps him.

“Dat is ENOUGH!” once again they stopped. “Both of you please, dis is a very stressful time of the year for ve professors. And I do not need the two of you, arguing constantly.”

“Yes sir.” They replied. North made his point clear, and they were both smart enough to get that.

“So is their a reason you tried to murder me or was that just because you’re a prat?” Jack asked.

“Well to let you know, I heard from one of the house elves that, a certain little brat, snuck out again.”

Jack was gonna strangle Dingle. “I have no idea.” he gasped innocently, “Was it one of the Williams, or was it Flee?” he said feigning innocence. “I’ll be sure to talk to all of them.”

“Don’t play around Jack, you know there are rules!” Aster replied, completely unphased by Jacks ploy for ignorance.

“Yeah, I know the rules Bunny, but I was so bored!” Jack whined.

“That doesn’t give you the right to just go out and do whatever it is you feel like doing.”

“I know.” he bowed his head, he really did know the rules, but he-- “Wait a minute!” He yelled. “I could totally go out if I had wanted to. North  _ told  _ me I could go to the tundras If I wanted to.”And Jack knew he’d caught Bunny, in his tracks.

“Yes, but not the ones past the boundaries, Ice head!” Okay he’d gotten him there. It wasn’t allowed for children, much less North and Goose’s charges, to go past the border into the  _ wild  _ tundras. There were things out there children had no business facing own their own. But that was where the ice cave was, and he had to get past the boundaries to get to it. 

“Okay, okay, i’ll stay within the city limits next time.”

“You had better or so help me.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it you’ll throw pellets at me.” Jack just couldn’t resist. The laugh that escaped his throat had been triumphant and hideous.

“Why you little…!” 

Before he knew it once again, Aster had jumped him. 

 

The next week the three of them went their separate ways. Bunny traveled to Diagon Alley via Floo Powder, with Jack and North traveling by North’s Sleigh. Aster had insisted Jack go with him to the alley, and assured North that he would make sure Jack got everything he needed and ‘stayed out of trouble’. But North wanted to spend some time with Jack and be with him when he got his wand. The first wand was a once and a lifetime moment, and North didn’t want to miss it. Jack was rather happy about this. Jack and North got everything settle into North’ sleigh  and were on there way. North’s sleigh was an amazing form of transportation. Slower than Floo powder, portkey, or apparition. but much faster than broom. And much more comfortable. Propelled the same way as well, magic enchantments and charms. No reindeer involved. North was not trying to further people's assumption that he was Santa Claus, any further than he already had. Jack couldn’t help but snicker at that.


End file.
